Maleamic acid compounds are a sort of important organic substances, and maleimide compounds prepared from such organic substances serving as intermediates through a catalyzed ring-closure reaction are widely studied in biological chemistry, organic chemistry, and polymer chemistry. Maleamic acids can become functional monomers in themselves through molecular design and can be used to prepare high-performance water-soluble polymers through self-polymerization or copolymerization, because they have asymmetric carbon atoms, amide structure, carboxyl group, and a variety of designable N-substituent groups.
Maleamic acid compounds are usually synthesized from maleic anhydride and amino-bearing compounds through an acylation reaction. However, synthetic maleamic acids studied and produced at present are in a small variety and have poor water solubility, and their preparation processes have demanding requirements for reaction temperature and apparatus, and involve complex steps. Therefore, the preparation processes can't meet the demand for simple preparation of a number of water-soluble chemical agents.
Besides, in industrial sectors such as petroleum engineering, waste water treatment, paper making, and textile, etc., the demand for polymer additives becomes higher and higher. That means it is highly necessary to design and synthesize monomer molecules that have special constructions.